Weekly Newsletter: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Baptism: Parents are asked to contact the Parish Office to make arrangements for attending a Baptismal Preparation Session and booking a Baptism date.

Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.

Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program

Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests

Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am)

Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm – 5:45pm)

Care and Concern: If you are aware of anyone who is sick or in need of assistance in the Parish please visit them. Then, if they are willing and give permission, could you please pass on their names to the Parish Office. We have a group of parishioners who are part of the Care and Concern Group who are willing and able to provide some backup and support to them. Unfortunately, because of privacy issues, the Parish Office is not able to give out details unless prior permission has been given.

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together
and calling us to serve as your disciples.

You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission

  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.

Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will

for the spiritual renewal of our parish.

Give us strength, courage, and clear vision
as we use our gifts to serve you.

We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,

and ask for her intercession and guidance
as we strive to bear witness

to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

Weekday Masses 7th - 10th November, 2017

Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin

Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe

Thursday:    10:30am Eliza Purton

12noon Devonport

Friday:           9:30am Ulverstone ... St Leo the Great



Next Weekend 11th & 12th November, 2017

Saturday Vigil:     6:00pm Penguin ... St Martin of Tours

  Devonport

Sunday Mass:     8:30am Port Sorell

9:00am Ulverstone

10:30am Devonport

  11:00am Sheffield

5:00pm Latrobe



Ministry Rosters 11th & 12th November, 2017

Devonport:

Readers: Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye 10:30am: F Sly, J Tuxworth, K Pearce

Ministers of Communion: Vigil: B, B & B Windebank, T Bird, J Kelly, R Baker

10.30am: S Riley, M Sherriff, R Beaton, D & M Barrientos

Cleaners. 10th Nov: K.S.C. 17th Nov: P & T Douglas

Piety Shop 11^th Nov: R Baker   12^th Nov: K Hull

Ulverstone:

Reader/s: S Lawrence

Ministers of Communion: P Steyn, E Cox, C Singline, M Barry

Cleaners: B & V McCall, G Doyle Flowers:   A Miller    Hospitality: Filipino Group

Penguin:

Greeters: S Ewing, J Garnsey Commentator: J Barker

Readers: A Landers, A Guest   Ministers of Communion: J Garnsey, S Ewing   Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J

Setting Up: T Clayton   Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton

Port Sorell:

Readers: M Badcock, G Duff    Ministers of Communion: B Lee     Cleaners/Flowers/Prepare: C Howard



Readings this week Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

First Reading: Malachi 1:14- 2:2. 8-10

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9. 13

   Gospel: Matthew 23:1-12

PREGO REFLECTION:

As I settle to pray, I take the time to quieten my mind and body.
I breathe in God’s love and goodness, and ask the Spirit to be with me as I prepare to pray the Gospel. Having read the text slowly a couple of times, I try and place myself in the crowd listening to Jesus.
His words are very direct.
How do I feel as I listen?
Am I amongst the scribes and Pharisees, aware that I do not always act according to what I think or say? If so, perhaps I can speak to Jesus about this.
Or maybe I am among the crowd, and feel weighed down by duties and obligations.
Can I speak of this to the Lord?
I sit quietly and endeavour to listen and to rest in God’s presence.
Maybe I think of my motivations – not allowing myself to be cowed, but neither seeking approval.
I ponder on Jesus’s respect for others.
I consider his words: ‘You are all brothers and sisters’.
I pray for unity in the Church, in the world.
I finish my prayer with a slow ‘Our Father ...’’

Readings next week - Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

First Reading: Wisdom 6:12-16

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13

Your prayers are asked for the sick:

Joseph Kiely, Romeo Gayo, Margaret Kenney, Victoria Webb, David Welch, & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:

Rosalinda Reyes, Neville Parker, Efren Menalabag, Bruce Beard, John Novaski, Viv Crocker, Peter McCormick, Josefina Turnbull, Betty Lewis, Beverley Ravanelli, Vern Cazaly.

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 1^st – 7^th November

Allan Fay, Tom Knight, Edith McCormack, Maurice Evans, Win Casey, Aurora Barker, Kevin Tolson, Annie Hood, Mary Rigney, Dean Turnbull and all those named in our November Remembrance Books.

  May they rest in peace

Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome and congratulate ….

Jasper Porter

son of Nicholas & Bridget, on his Baptism this weekend.

Weekly Ramblings

Last weekend I started my Ramblings with information about some steps we are undertaking to Form a Parish Pastoral Team (PPT) for Mersey Leven. I mentioned that over the next six months we will be looking at a new style of Parish Pastoral Team. I invite you to pray that we can discern the right people to be part of this process. Today I include part two of the process:

Realising the vision – ‘Unified’…

Mersey Leven is currently comprised of distinct geographical centres with long standing cultures and with their own functional mass centres.

Communication with centres best done through PPT.

Need whole of parish members, discerned from ‘whole of parish’ –HOPs

Include one ‘envoy’ from each ‘specific centre’, discerned by the centre – SCs

Envoys bring knowledge and confidence of their community to the PPT table. They are the communication conduit between the PPT and the community.

A HOP member can also be an SC member.

Next Wednesday evening the Devonport Christian Leaders have invited all Devonport Churches to come together at the Dreambuilders Church, Forbes Street from 7pm - 8pm. A time to Praise God, to pray for our City, pray for the Church and pray for our Nation. In the spirit of my current Homily Series – Who is my neighbour? - I would like to extend a special invitation to all Parishioners to be part of this time of prayer as we strive to become more of a neighbour to our Christian Brothers and Sisters within the local community.

A reminder that we have our 2^nd whole of Parish Mass for 2017 will be celebrated on the Feast of Christ the King, 26^th November. Mass will be at Sacred Heart Church, Ulverstone at 11am and will be followed by a BBQ lunch. This is a wonderful opportunity for all the Parish to celebrate as one faith community and I would encourage everyone to make plans to be part of this special day.

Please take care on the roads and in your homes,

OLOL READERS ROSTER: will be available at OLOL Church sacristy from Saturday 4^th November.

DAME ENID LYONS TRUST FUNDRAISING FILM NIGHT: CMAX Devonport Thursday 9th November: Film “Murder on the Orient Express” 7pm. Food and refreshments 6:15pm. Cost $20 per ticket. Tickets available from Toni Muir, Mary Davies, Maureen Clarke or Devonport City Council. History of Dame Enid Lyons Trust on noticeboard plus film flyer.

CHORISTERS AND MUSICIANS:

The first rehearsal for our Parish Christ the King Mass will be Tuesday 14^th November at 7 pm in Ulverstone. All welcome. Contact John for further details re music. john.leearcher@gmail.com or phone 0419 523 867.

WHOLE OF PARISH MASS:

There will be a barbecue lunch after the Whole of Parish Mass at Ulverstone on Sunday 26th November. All are invited to attend. It would be appreciated if you could please bring a salad or sweet to share. If you are able to assist with preparations for the lunch (setting up, serving etc.) please phone Rosemarie Baker 0408 123 586. Thank you.



·        Wednesday 29^th November 2017: St Brendan-Shaw College Year 12 Graduation Mass and Dinner.

·        22^nd January 2018: St Brendan-Shaw College Office opens.

·        1^st February 2018: Term 1 commences for years 7, 11 & 12 (Years 8, 9 & 10 commence 2^nd February) - St Brendan-Shaw College.



Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport.

Eyes down 7.30pm!

Callers for Thursday 9^th November – Tony Ryan & Terry Bird.

NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:

STAR OF THE SEA CATHOLIC COLLEGE 60^th ANNIVERSARY:

Star of the Sea Catholic College, George Town, is celebrating its 60th Anniversary. To celebrate, the school is holding a Cocktail Evening at 7:30pm for past staff and students on Friday 10th November, a Family Fun Day from 12 - 4pm on Saturday 11th November, and a Mass of Thanksgiving at 11:00am on Sunday 12th November. Star of the Sea warmly welcomes past staff, students and families to any of the events. For more information, please contact the College on 6382:1242 or search for the Star of the Sea 60th Anniversary Facebook page.

GOLDEN JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS “CHARISMATIC MASS”

Catholic Charismatic Renewal are sponsoring its Golden Jubilee Celebration at St Michaels Catholic Church Campbelltown Tasmania on Saturday 18th November 2017, commencing at 11:00am with Praise and Worship and Mass celebrated by Archbishop Julian Porteous, followed by a shared lunch. All denominations are welcome to come and celebrate the liturgy in a vibrant and dynamic way using charismatic praise and worship.

If you wish to know more or require transport, please contact Celestine Whiteley 6424:2043, Michel Gaffney 0447 018 068, or Tom Knapp 6425:2442.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

13^th-17^th Nov: Diocesan Retreat – Maryknoll

14^th Nov: 7pm Choir and music rehearsal -

Sacred Heart Ulverstone

25^th Nov: 2pm Choir and music rehearsal -

Sacred Heart Ulverstone

26^th Nov: 11am Whole of Parish Mass - Ulverstone.

3^rd Dec: 2-4pm Parish Forum – Ulverstone

REMEMBRANCE DAY - 11th NOVEMBER, 2017

Holding the Tension

This article is taken from the daily email from Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to the email here

The future of mature Christianity will be practice-based more than merely belief-based, which gives us nothing to argue about until we try it for ourselves.

Jesus praises faith even more than love. “Your faith has saved you” is often his concluding word (for example, Luke 8:48). Why? Because typically, wisdom, love, or further growth will not go deeper without another opening up or letting go. For some reason, each time you have to learn it again and “reopen.” Faith enlightens the path behind you, but as a rule, in front of you it is still dark. Now, however, not so threatening or impossible, because for you “a light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overpower it” (John 1:5).

Are you ready to open yourself—to vulnerability, to risk, to relationship? If so, let’s begin!

Think of one controversial issue that you are “suffering” with and acknowledge two or more possible outcomes or realities. Try to not take sides, but hold the pain of contradictions and seeming impossibilities. Notice where this tension appears in your body. Observe it with tenderness and send warmth and love to that place. Ask God to hold you since you cannot hold yourself.

As with contemplative prayer or meditation, whenever you get caught in thinking through the pros and cons or are drawn to choose a particular side, simply return to holding the tension. Rest in God’s presence which holds you and this paradox.

Emerging from this spaciousness, you can now be taught by the Holy Spirit. It might just be wisdom you receive, instead of only knowledge.

References:

Adapted from Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 199; and

Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 120-121.

A PLEA FOR THE SOUL
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here

It’s hard to find your soulmate in someone who doesn’t believe you have a soul.

Recently on The Moth Radio Hour a young woman shared the story of her breakup with her boyfriend, a young man for whom she had deep feelings. The problem was that she, a person with a deep faith, a Mormon, struggled with the radical materialism of her boyfriend. For him, there were no souls; the physical world was real, and nothing else. She kept asking him if he believed he had a soul. He couldn’t make himself believe that. Eventually, not without a lot of heartache, they broke up. Why? In her words: It’s hard to find your soulmate in someone who doesn’t believe you have a soul.

Her frustration is becoming more universal. More and more our world is ignoring and denying the existence of soul, becoming soulless. It wasn’t always like this. Up until modern times, often it was the physical and the body that weren’t properly honored. But things have changed, radically.

It began with Darwin, who rooted our origins more in the history of our bodies than in the origins of our souls; it took more shape in the mechanistic philosophies of the last century, which understood both our universe and ourselves as physical machines; it became more firm as modern medicine and experimental psychology began more and more to explain the brain primarily in terms of carbon complexification and biochemical interactions; it seeped into our higher educational systems as we produced more and more technical schools rather than universities in the deeper sense; and it culminated in popular culture where love and sex are spoken of more in terms of chemistry than in terms of soul. It is not surprising that for most pop singers today the mantra is: I want your body! I want your body! We’re a long ways from Shakespeare’s marriage of true minds and Yeats’ love of the pilgrim soul in you.

Religion of course has always lodged its protests against this but often its understanding of the soul was itself too narrow to have much power to lure a materialistic culture back into wanting to rediscover and listen to the soul. Ironically, it took a non-religious figure, Carl Jung, to speak of soul again in a way that is intellectually intriguing. And it was in the sick, the insane, the suicidal, and others whose lives were broken that Jung began to hear the cry of the soul (whose demands are sometimes very different from those of the body and whose needs are for much more than simple comfort and the prolonging of life).

Much of Jung’s teaching and that of his followers can be seen as a protest for the soul. We see this, for example, in the writing of James Hillman. It’s ironic that as an agnostic he was able to speak about the soul in ways that we, who are religious, might envy and emulate. Like Jung, he also drew many of his insights from listening to the soul cry out its meaning and pain through the voices of the sick, the insane, the broken, and the suicidal. Religion, medicine, and psychology, he believes, are not hearing the soul’s cry. They’re forever trying to fix the soul, cure the soul, or save the soul, rather than listening to the soul, which wants and needs neither to be fixed nor saved. It’s already eternal. The soul needs to be heard, and heard in all its godly goodness and earthy complexes. And sometimes what it tells us goes against all common sense, medical practice, and the over-simplistic spiritualities we often present as religion.

To be more in touch with our souls we might examine an older language, the language that religion, poets, mythologists, and lovers used before today’s dominant materialism turned our language about the soul into the language of chemistry and mechanism. We cannot understand the soul through any scientific description but only by looking at its behavior, its insatiability, its dissatisfactions, and its protests. A soul isn’t explained, it’s experienced, and soul experience always comes soaked in depth, in longing, in eros, in limit, in the feeling of being pilgrim in need of a soulmate.

Happily, even today, we still do spontaneously connect the soul to things beyond chemistry and mechanism. As Hillman points out: “We associate the word ‘soul’ with: mind, spirit, heart, life, warmth, humanness, personality, individuality, intentionality, essence, innermost, purpose, emotion, quality, virtue, morality, sin, wisdom, death, God. As well, we speak of a soul as ‘troubled’, ‘old’, ‘disembodied’, ‘immortal’, ‘lost’, ‘innocent’, ‘inspired’. Eyes are said to be ‘soulful’, for the eyes are ‘the mirror of the soul’; and one can be ‘soulless’ by showing no mercy.”

Soullessness: We understand the make-up of something best when we see it broken. So perhaps today we can best understand our soullessness in the growing acceptance of pornography and hook-up sex, where the soul is intentionally and necessarily excluded from what is meant to be the epitome of all soulful experience.

5 THINGS LEADERS DO
This article is taken from the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timonium, Maryland. The original blog can be found here

Great leaders, and those of us aspiring to be, all do certain things that are worth reflecting on when it comes to leading a parish. Here are 5, in no particular order.

They Simplify the Complex

Great leaders stick with a problem or idea long enough, and engage it deeply enough, to clear away the complexity and reduce it to its simplest form. That doesn’t mean they dumb it down. Rather, it means they make the concept accessible. And because it becomes accessible, more people can get on board and follow. Before we present a homily or any kind of presentation we always ask: “what do we want them to know, what do we want them to do?” And if we can’t answer those questions in two simple sentences, we know we have more work to do.

They Clarify the Confusing

A great leader or pastor is going to be all about gathering information, oftentimes confusing information, and bringing clarity to it, at least eventually. I know I am at my best, and most effective on our leadership team, when I am encouraging different points of view, in order to allow clarity to emerge.

They Refuse to Make Excuses

Ever notice that the best leaders rarely make excuses?
In fact, the leaders who make the most progress, who go the furthest the fastest, make the fewest excuses. And the leaders who make the most excuses make the least progress. Great leaders don’t have time for excuses.

They Think Abundance

A scarcity mindset will kill your organization or church over the long haul. Certainly there are seasons for restraint and every organization needs a strict fiscal regulator (ours is named Brandon). That’s just good management. But if all you do is think small, you’ll stay small (and you probably should stay small). If you think it’s not possible, it won’t be. Great leaders have great vision for their organization, great goals for themselves, great incentives and abundant encouragement for their team members.

They Think Through Priorities

Great leaders have great priorities. But, they are also continually assessing and reassessing those priorities. They discipline themselves and their organization, they direct their resources and their energy, and they allocate their time and their money to making their goals a reality.

The ‘Last Things’: Heaven, Hell and Purgatory
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website - the complete article can be found by clicking here
On 2nd November each year we observe All Souls’ Day and pray for all the faithful departed. Jesuit theologian, Josep Giménez discusses concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory, which are often brought to mind on this occasion but can be so difficult to talk about meaningfully. What form can our discourse about these eschatological topics take?

What is the best way to talk of heaven, hell and purgatory, the ‘classical’ topics of eschatology? This is an area that makes us aware, sometimes painfully so, of the radical inadequacy of human language. These are topics that we cannot treat without having ‘anticipatory experiences’ of them.

Speaking of hell…
Is hell just and necessary? Theology claims to be doxological speech about God, that is, speech which gives praise to God. But when we speak of hell, does not our speech become an irreverent and blasphemous discourse, attributing to God ways of acting that negate his love and mercy? Is it possible? Won’t speaking about hell lead us into blind alleys and into quandaries that are difficult (if not impossible) to solve? When speaking of hell, the gospels keep repeating the expression, ‘...where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’. Such weeping and gnashing of teeth make it difficult for us to articulate even a minimally comprehensible discourse about this topic.

What hell is not

Nevertheless, we must talk about it. For a long time the Church in its pastoral work has placed too much (sometimes, nearly exclusive) stress on this topic, thus generating a ‘religion of fear and terror’. Basic responsibility and honesty require us to clear up misunderstandings that have done so much harm and to put things in their proper place.

If you would like to read the remainder of this article please click here

Weekly Newsletter

Friday 3 November 2017

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Holding the Tension

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